Of the Same Coin
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "By the time he's in middle school, Izaya has learned to cover his arms." Information is a valuable commodity when it comes to identities as much as anything else.
1. Tails

'i'm so tired of the AU where your soulmate's name is on your wrist. i want my enemy's name on my wrist. i wanna know who i'm going to have to physically fight eventually. turn on your fucking location'

'your enemy's name on one wrist and your soulmate the another. no clue which is which. hope it's not the same name on both wrists.'

* * *

By the time he's in middle school, Izaya has learned to cover his arms.

It's not that unusual. Most kids adopt some kind of affection to keep their skin covered as they come out of elementary school, when the names written indelibly across the tracery of veins in their wrists gain more immediate interest than just the vague curiosity of children too young to care about either sworn enemies or lifelong soulmates. It's not until the end of elementary school that the characters embedded under the skin became of real interest, among the girls first and then spreading to the boys with the odd fever-bright intensity that taught Izaya to turn his wrists down, to press the patterns over his pulse points against the dark of his school uniform instead of leaving them clear for view. He kept his jacket on after that, watched as the girls started wearing bracelets and some of the boys began to wrap their wrists with bandages, and learned to keep his cuffs half-over his hands to hide the dark lines under his skin.

It's a point of interest for some people, a sign of intimacy among friends to share the text on your wrists. Luckily Izaya doesn't have many to count as friends who would ask, and even when Shinra eventually does Izaya is willing enough to show him in exchange for seeing the curiosity of the English text printed in a neat line along Shinra's left arm. Shinra makes no attempt to hide it, in class or otherwise, but it's still satisfying to see it laid clear for Izaya's consideration, the information offered freely instead of won by theft or lies.

"I already know her," Shinra volunteers while Izaya is tracing over the lines, sounding out the unfamiliar letters that fit together to _Celty Sturluson_ under Shinra's skin. "Pretty lucky to know which one's my soulmate, huh?"

"How can you be sure?" Izaya asks without looking up, just to argue the point, because there's a warm dip to Shinra's voice that twists something into an ache against the inside of his chest. "Maybe you just think she's your soulmate and really you're doomed to fight each other in the future."

"No, no," Shinra insists, waving his other hand through the air with so much gratuitous excitement that Izaya has to lean back to keep from getting hit. "I could never fight Celty, even if she wanted to kill me!"

"Very lucky, then," Izaya says, and lets his hold on Shinra's arm go to close his fingers against his cuffs and tug them down in the involuntary habit he developed years ago. "You have your whole life sorted out already, sounds very simple and straightforward and boring."

Shinra's laugh is high, breathless and so loud it teeters on the edge of mania before he can catch it back. "There's nothing boring about love," he says, smiling all over his face with that same glowing happiness that sticks against the gaps in Izaya's ribs deeper than a knife would go. "What about you, do you know which is which yet?"

Izaya takes a breath. His shoulders want to hunch, his fingers want to tighten on the cuffs of his sleeves; but this is friendship, and he knows how this works, and even if Shinra would let him get away with keeping the secret to himself there's a need laid in along Izaya's spine, a desire to share the weight of his secret with someone other than the echoing space of his own head. So he uncurls his fingers, and musters a smile, and says "Sure do" as he offers his matched wrists to Shinra for inspection.

Shinra hisses an inhale, his eyes going wide on shock as he leans in; it takes an effort of will for Izaya to not flinch away at the press of fingers to his skin as Shinra grips his arm to peer at the characters on first his left and then his right wrist. Izaya knows what he'll see, doesn't need to look down to confirm; the single name hasn't changed all his life, he doesn't imagine it'll do him the favor of shifting now just because someone else is looking at it.

"That's crazy," Shinra finally tells him, his whole face glowing with interest. "I've never heard of someone with the same name on both wrists. Do you think one of them could be wrong?"

"I doubt it," Izaya says, letting his sleeves fall back over his hands. "I've never heard of the names making a mistake before."

Shinra's forehead creases. "But that would mean-"

Izaya bares all his teeth in a smile. "At least I'll know when I meet them, right?"

It _is_ a comfort, of sorts. Most people Izaya sees carry the weight of their names creased into their foreheads, those who aren't as lucky as Shinra or as Izaya's twin sisters, who as likely to hold hands with the arms with the matching _enemy_ name as the ones with each other's laid into their child-skinny wrists. It's amusing to watch, Izaya finds, to see people pouring over the shape of the characters and the fortune-telling attempts to determine which wrist is which - love or hate, enemy or soulmate - as if there's any logic to the imprint at all. Izaya is left to watch from the corner of the classroom, or a chair in the back of a coffeeshop, or looking down from the edge of the school roof, left to watch the stress of not-knowing crease teenagers' faces before their time and settle heavy on the shoulders of adults who don't yet see the trajectory of their life laid before them.

By the time he starts high school he's glad for his own odd wrists; better to know, he thinks, better to spend his life calmly waiting for destiny to fall into his lap than to be questioning every interaction he has with every stranger he meets. The first day of class is amusing even before the teacher arrives, entertaining just for the range of reactions Izaya sees, for the half-controlled panic of meeting dozens of new people with new names written clear on every face as he finds his way across the classroom to a seat in the very back row of the middle aisle. It's where he's sitting when the teacher comes in, where he's watching as the roll call starts, observing the shivers of excitement that roll through the crowd with each new name. Izaya's grinning after the first minute, barely restraining laughter in the back of his throat, and then: "Heiwajima Shizuo" from the teacher's mouth, an echo from Izaya's memories so eerie it takes him a moment to be sure he's heard it.

"Here," growls a voice from the front of the room, and Izaya's attention snaps to blond hair, to a blue jacket, to shoulders hunched forward over a desk like the owner can't find the energy to sit more upright. Izaya's entire body goes hot, awareness prickling through his veins like electricity running down a wire to charge him hot and shaky; his wrists are burning, the characters under his skin are itching like they're the tattoos they appear to be in truth, until it takes all he has to keep his hands flat on his desk and not close his fingers around the angle of his wrists. His heart is pounding, his breathing catching, and then there's the sound of his name, "Orihara Izaya" read aloud in the teacher's calm voice, and Shizuo jerks upright in his chair like he's been electrocuted.

"Present," Izaya says without looking away. Shizuo's head whips around, his attention skimming over the class, and then he sees Izaya staring at him, sees the smile Izaya is giving him from the back of the classroom.

Izaya doesn't know what he expected. A scowl, maybe, maybe a shout or a curse or something similar. What he was _not_ expecting is what happens, which is Shizuo shoving to his feet and lunging towards him without any hesitation or concern for the desks or students in his way. The first is just kicked aside, the second manages to throw himself backwards and out of the line of motion, but Shizuo doesn't even glance at them; he's just coming forward, moving so fast and with so little hesitation that Izaya doesn't have time to even get to his feet before Shizuo's hands are closing on his uniform jacket and hauling him up off his feet to shove him back against the wall.

" _You_ ," Shizuo hisses into his face. His eyes are dark, Izaya can see from under the tangle of his bleached-blond hair; his mouth is dragging on a scowl, his teeth bared in fury, but his hands against Izaya's jacket are warm, so hot that Izaya can feel the radiance of the other's body right through the fabric. "What the _fuck_ are you doing in my class?"

Izaya can feel adrenaline on his tongue, can feel the tension in his throat that presages the heat of tears in his eyes; but when he opens his mouth it's laughter that spills free instead, a breathless wave of sound that hums in his throat with unstoppable force. There's shouting behind the width of Shizuo's shoulders, the teacher finding voice for protest while the students knocked aside add their complaints to the sound, but Izaya's not listening any more than Shizuo is; all he can hear is the sound of Shizuo's breathing hissing past the grit of his teeth.

"Hey," Izaya says, and lets his hold on his sleeves go to reaches for Shizuo's wrists, to press his fingers into the characters of his name on either side like he can read them through his fingertips. "Nice to finally meet you, Shizu-chan."


	2. Heads

Shizuo knows what love is supposed to be.

He's seen plenty of examples of it. Not the sappy, melodramatic professions of teenagers swearing to be together forever before they break up the next week, and not the pathetic, desperate lust of older men being seduced by young women who will tell all kinds of sweet lies in exchange for a monthly apartment payment or a closetful of pretty clothes. He's seen the real thing, in the warmth in his mother's eyes when she looks at his father across the dinner table and in the contented smiles of those adults who wear the name printed on the inside of their wrist with the easy comfort of those who have met their soulmate. He's even seen the raw edge of it in the mania behind Shinra's eyes, in the obsessive adoration that pushes his friend past the bounds of morality and common sense sometimes. But that's love, that's _real_ love, even Shinra's tight-wound variety of it, and Shizuo knows how to recognize it, knows how to pick out the shape and flavor of it from the interactions between two people.

He's always known it was going to be different for him. The matched names on his wrists promised him that as soon as he was old enough to understand their import, offered him a future soulmate and enemy at once as he could never craft from the whole cloth of imagination. But still, even the occasional insomniac consideration never prepared him for this: blood on his mouth, a bruise at his jaw, the pressure of teeth and lips and tongue crushing against his as he tightens his fingers hard against the characters printed on Orihara Izaya's wrist.

"Drop it," he says, hissing the words into the gasping part of Izaya's lips in the gap between kisses more violent than a punch. "Let it go, Izaya-kun."

"Make me," Izaya purrs, arching off the wall behind him to meet Shizuo halfway to contact. His free hand is in Shizuo's hair, his fingers twisting into a painful fist on the strands, but then Shizuo has a hold of Izaya too, has his palm caught hard at the back of the other's neck so his thumb can dig against the flutter of Izaya's pulse in his throat. Izaya shifts, his body coming off the wall entirely, and for a moment he's pressed hard against Shizuo's chest and tipping his head sideways to catch his mouth flush to the other's. He tastes like blood when he licks against Shizuo's mouth, his lip oozing metallic weight from the impact of Shizuo's knuckles earlier; the taste makes Shizuo's mouth water, makes him push in closer to lick hard against Izaya's tongue. There's the purr of a laugh, the sound stripped away to leave just a shudder of vibration, and Izaya bites down hard enough for Shizuo to hiss and jerk away as his mouth goes hot with sudden pain. Izaya laughs as Shizuo growls hurt, his teeth flashing bright for a moment past the bloodstained red of his lips and the swelling bruise at the corner of his mouth. The fingers in Shizuo's hair tighten, the weight of Izaya's hold drags to urge him back in. "Come back, Shizu-chan," Izaya purrs, his eyes dark with shadows that glint crimson when the light catches them. "We're not done yet."

"Shut up," Shizuo tells him, and it wasn't suppose to be like this but it is: his weight rocking forward, Izaya shuddering against the wall like he's electrified by Shizuo's touch. Shizuo's blood is going hot, surging in his veins like the tide rushing in, and he's grabbing for Izaya's hair, letting the other's wrist go in favor of catching the sharp lines of his face between the weight of both palms. Izaya turns his head up for another kiss, his smile dragging tension over his lips, and Shizuo crushes pressure against them just to feel the way Izaya's smile fractures into a moan instead. He can feel the resonance of the sound purr all through his body, setting him on fire from the inside out, and then there's an impact at his side, a burst of pain so starkly clear that it's enough to push aside the haze over his thoughts for a moment.

" _Ah_ ," he gasps, and reaches out instinctively to grab at the source. His fingers touch Izaya's wrist, drag over flexing tendons, and then find out the weight of the knife Izaya's just stabbed him with. " _Fuck_." Izaya's grinning again, bright and flashing as if he's won something; Shizuo closes his fingers on the handle of the switchblade and drags it free, grimacing at the burst of pain before he throws it down the alley to be lost to the shadows.

"Aww," Izaya whimpers. "That was my favorite knife, Shizu-chan."

"You _stabbed_ me," Shizuo tells him, and grabs at Izaya's wrist again, pressing hard enough to bruise fingerprints into the skin. "You don't get to complain."

"You punched me first," Izaya points out. He's not resisting Shizuo's hold, not trying to twist his wrist free of the other's hand; Shizuo can feel the rhythm of Izaya's heartbeat pounding hard under his fingers. "Seeing how much of a monster you are, I think we're about even, don't you?"

" _No_ ," Shizuo tells him, and shoves in closer, crushing Izaya back against the wall until he can hear the other's breathing give way to a gasp at the impact. Izaya whimpers at the force but there's too much heat under the sound to pass for true hurt, and Shizuo is ducking in closer again, drawn to the blood at Izaya's mouth as if to a magnet. "We're _not_ " and they're kissing again, Shizuo's bruising Izaya's lips back against his teeth while Izaya's fingers twist and drag at his hair. Izaya shifts his weight, hooks a leg up around Shizuo's hip, and that's fine too, Shizuo can get closer still this way. He lets his hold at Izaya's neck go, reaches down to grab for his waist instead, and Izaya groans something unintelligible and liquid with heat into his mouth as Shizuo gets his fingers shoved up to grab at the dip of bare skin under the rising bruise of his fist against Izaya's ribs. Izaya's hips come forward to grind hard against Shizuo's, and Shizuo is rocking to meet him, instinct and reflex pushing him closer more than conscious thought. Izaya's hand is unresisting in his hold, his fingers slack and passive, but his heart is pounding, Shizuo can feel the rush of blood under his thumb with each beat.

"Fuck you," Shizuo says, hissing the words into blood at Izaya's lip as his hand slides down the other's hip to catch the angle of his knee, to drag him up so Shizuo's holding his full weight against the wall. "This isn't the way it's supposed to be."

Izaya's laugh is brittle; it tears over Shizuo's tongue like glass, rubs raw all against his spine like it's trying to strip him down to muscle and bone. "The way _what's_ supposed to be?" he wants to know, and his fingers are against Shizuo's slacks, now, dragging rough with the zipper until Shizuo wants to snap at him to be careful, as if that would have any effect but the opposite one he wants.

" _This_." Shizuo tightens his fingers again, shoves his thumb across the pattern of his name under Izaya's skin as if he can rub it off with enough force, as if he can strip away the connection between them through sheer determination. Izaya's fingers are working his clothes open, seeking out the flushed warmth of the skin underneath, and Shizuo's hips come forward of their own accord to shove hard at Izaya's palm. "It's not supposed to work like this."

"Like _what_?" Izaya asks. His lashes are dark, charcoal and smoke over the dark-hazed crimson of his eyes; a smile is still clinging to his mouth, his breathing is still rushing hard against his lips. "Obsessive? Violent? Destructive?" He blinks, tips his chin down; when he looks up through his hair his eyes look black, the only color left in his face the blood smeared over his bruised lips. "What other kind of enemies do you _have_ , Shizu-chan?"

"That's not what I meant," Shizuo tells him, even though he knows Izaya knows that, even though his attention is skidding away with the press of Izaya's fingers finally making it under the weight of his clothes to drag heat directly over his skin. He pushes in closer, rocks himself against the open angle of Izaya's legs, and Izaya groans raw heat in the back of his throat, his lashes fluttering to shut for a moment. Shizuo ducks in closer in Izaya's brief distraction, fitting his face against the other's neck, and Izaya's head tips to the side to make an offering of his pulsepoint, to give the untouched pale of his throat for Shizuo's lips. Shizuo licks hard against him, catching salt and smoke on his tongue, and then he catches the tendon of Izaya's shoulder under his teeth and bites hard enough to bruise, hard enough to tear past the surface of Izaya's skin and spill iron-heavy blood across his tongue. Izaya jerks, hissing loud at Shizuo's ear, but Shizuo doesn't let him go, and when Izaya twists his hand in Shizuo's hold it's to reach for the other's wrist, to scrape his fingernails hard across the shape of his name in Shizuo's arm.

This isn't what it's supposed to be like, but Shizuo can't fight against reality.


	3. Edge

"Did you think it would be like this?"

Shizuo's voice is loud in the quiet of Izaya's apartment. It's late, the hours of the night long since shifted into the beginnings of the morning, the world gone so still that with his head pressed to Shizuo's chest Izaya can hear the sound of the other's heartbeat more clearly than the purr of the nighttime city floors below them. He had been chasing the edge of sleep, letting unconsciousness uncurl itself into the corners of his brain like a lullaby; the sound of the other's voice is enough to draw a frown to his mouth, enough to drag a groan from his throat. "I was _sleeping_ , Shizu-chan."

"You weren't," Shizuo tells him, as if he knows Izaya's mind better than Izaya himself. "You keep pulling my hair, you're not _asleep_."

"I was nearly," Izaya says, and turns his face down to press his nose hard against the midline of Shizuo's chest. Shizuo grunts at the impact, reaches to push at Izaya's shoulder, and Izaya makes a fist of the hair tangled around his fingers and pulls until Shizuo hisses protest. "It'll take me another half hour again, now."

"Sorry," Shizuo says, sounding not very sorry at all. His hand is still at Izaya's shoulder, his thumb digging in hard under the line of Izaya's collarbone; Izaya turns his head again, shifts himself against the support of Shizuo's body under him, and Shizuo's hold eases a little, retreating from the edge of pain and into just the warm grip of contact at Izaya's skin. There's quiet for another moment, a minute of quiet falling around them; then Shizuo takes a breath so deep Izaya can hear the effort of the other bracing himself to speak before he puts words to the thought. "So did you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Izaya informs him. He can see the angle of Shizuo's arm shadowed into weight by the faint lighting on the other side of the closed blinds; if he looks for it, he can just see the last character of his name dark against Shizuo's skin. "Are you asking about the sex, because I think aside from your penchant for bruising and your taste in exhibitionism we're fairly vanilla." He pauses, purses his lips into a show of consideration that Shizuo won't be able to see. "I suppose the death threats are somewhat unusual."

Shizuo huffs irritation and shoves hard enough at Izaya's shoulder that it's only the other's grip at Shizuo's hip that keeps him from sliding entirely off the support of the other's body. Even as it is he goes sideways, slipping over onto the tangle of the sheets under them as his own hold pulls Shizuo in towards him; Izaya tightens his grip on blond hair, drags hard at the strands, and Shizuo hisses and leans closer in reflexive obedience to the force, the angle of his shoulders tipping in over Izaya like a wall to keep him down or to keep the world away.

"No," Shizuo says. Izaya can see his eyes like this, can see the night-dark weight of them and the flash of white teeth when Shizuo scowls. "I'm not talking about the _sex_." His hand slides sideways, the weight of his touch wandering up Izaya's shoulder to his throat instead, his thumb seeking out its favorite resting place against the other's pulse. "You're the one who always starts things when we're outside, anyway."

"And you finish them," Izaya purrs. Shizuo's scowl deepens, his forehead creasing, and Izaya laughs and reaches up for Shizuo's neck with the hand not fisted in yellow hair so he can catch both arms around Shizuo's shoulders at once. "What _are_ you talking about, then?"

Shizuo's forehead eases, the frown at his lips relaxing out of shape. "This," he says, and turns his head sideways to bump his mouth against the mark on Izaya's wrist, to drag his lips across his name under the other's skin. "Did you think it would be like this, when you were a kid?"

Izaya opens his mouth for a quick response, something sarcastic and cutting to win him another frown, maybe a growl, maybe even the weight of one of Shizuo's kisses shoved in hard against the angle of his grin. But the words die on his tongue, the quip fails to form; Shizuo's staring at him, his eyes gone dark with nighttime shadows and his mouth soft on unusual sincerity, and Izaya can feel the weight of the other's attention like a physical force, like it carries far more strength than even Shizuo's body has ever demonstrated.

Izaya closes his mouth again. He can remember the weight of the marks as a child, can remember the days spent on imagination, on pressing the shape of _enemy_ and _soulmate_ together as if he could make them fit the same space through the invention of his own mind. He can remember the creations his fantasy produced, drawn-out seductions more like wars than romance or love made vicious and raw at the edges by the threat of unrequited feelings or the suggestion of infidelity. And he can remember Shizuo, unexpected and unplanned and unanticipated, twisting in his seat to growl pure fury at him from across the distance of a classroom, can remember the skid-out thrum in his chest like an unheard rhythm had settled into his veins, like his whole body was aligning itself to a foreign heartbeat falling into syncopation with his own. He can remember the taste of blood on salt-sweat skin, can remember the weight of bruises so deep they settled into his bones with more permanency than kisses ever could, can remember the gasping breath under promises of hate that made every syllable sound like a profession of adoration. And he doesn't have to remember: he can feel it now, in the weight of Shizuo's thumb at his throat and the ache of the strain lingering at his hip from the angle Shizuo forced his knee into earlier. He can see it in the print of his teeth laid bloody against Shizuo's shoulder and in the night-soft shadows in Shizuo's eyes, can hear it in the phantom sound of Shizuo's heartbeat thudding in his ears.

"No," Izaya says, unfamiliar honesty bright and metallic like copper on his tongue. "I didn't think someone like you could exist."

Shizuo stares at him for a moment. Izaya can feel the echo of his words hanging in the air as they gain weight to bear down on him, to crush him out of the existence with the force of his own sincerity. Then Shizuo blinks, the motion weirdly slow paced against Izaya's racing heartbeat, and says "Me either" as casually as if he doesn't feel the force of the silence, or as if he shrugs it off as easily as he performs any of his other inhuman feats of strength. "I've never known anyone else like you before."

Izaya's throat knots on itself, tensing on some sound that feels like a laugh and tastes like a sob and promises hysteria if he lets it free. He keeps his mouth shut instead, keeps his eyes open to stare up at Shizuo looking down at him, to watch Shizuo's attention wander across his expression before dipping sideways against the bruised fingerprints laid over Izaya's collarbone and landing at the angle of the wrist Izaya has draped around Shizuo's neck. Shizuo lets his hold at Izaya's throat go, reaches up for his arm instead; his fingers fit against his name without effort, as if his touch was drawn to the mark as iron to a magnet.

"I'm glad," Shizuo says, the words still too-loud in the room, ringing in his throat and resonating through Izaya like his body is the curve of a bell, like it's his resistance that is giving Shizuo's voice such weight. Shizuo's hand pulls Izaya's wrist away, angles it up to pin to the soft of the bed over his head; the action dips him closer, brings the shadows of his lashes and the curve of his mouth into range of contact, if Izaya just reaches out for them. "This is okay." Shizuo's hair slides forward, a lock catching against Izaya's forehead to ghost friction against the skin. His hold on Izaya's wrist is unbreakable, the control of a jail cell condensed into the casual grip of fingers against fragile bone. "This is enough."

Izaya can feel the soft of Shizuo's hair under his fingers, can feel the strands offering a handhold if he makes a fist of them. He doesn't. He loosens his fingers instead, slides his palm up along Shizuo's jawline; for a moment his hand is pressed to the other's cheek, their skin so nearly the same temperature Izaya can't feel a difference. Then he reaches out without looking, stretching towards the press of Shizuo's hand bracing at the bed, and when his thumb presses to skin he can feel the thud of Shizuo's pulse against his touch as proof that he has dark-marked skin under his palm.

"Enough," Izaya says, and tightens his hold to press the shape of his name hard against Shizuo's wrist like he's trying to force it past the barrier of the other's veins and into the heat of his blood. "Kiss me, Shizu-chan."

Izaya has wondered, sometimes, which of his wrists is which, which one it is that carries the violence and which one the heat, which one love and which one hate. When Shizuo leans in to crush a kiss to his mouth, to flare the aching friction of pleasure and pain alike down the length of Izaya's spine, Izaya decides that it never really mattered anyway.

In the end, it's Shizuo's name just the same.


End file.
